Gasthaus zur Krone (Hilden)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Gasthof Zur Krone" with fauna garden, Hilden (postcard around 1906)

The inn "Zur Krone" in Hilden on Mittelstrasse 17 in the Mettmann district in North Rhine-Westphalia was a historic inn from the seventeenth century to 1959 .

History before Hildens became a town

In accordance with the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, the Catholic community in Hilden had to vacate the St. Jacobus Church (known as the Reformation Church since 1958 ) in 1650 . Pastor Franz Rütger Gerretz (later also country dean) rented the “Ulrichskuhle” inn for the Catholic community in 1680. After the Catholic community moved in, the Ulrichskuhle was no longer available as an inn. The Ulrichskuhle was at the corner of Mittelstrasse / Hochdahler Strasse (the church house was demolished in 1900 and the Reichshof was built for it in 1911. This was also demolished in 2014 and replaced by the Jacobushof with the Catholic community center, which was inaugurated in 2016). At the end of the seventeenth century, Christian Kemperdick built the inn “Die Neue Kuhle”, the later “Zur Krone”, as a half-timbered house in the old Bergisch style at Mittelstrasse 17
opposite today's St. Jacobus Church .

The inn "Zur Krone" was on the old Cologne trade route "Strata Coloniensis" . A new town center was built at the fork.

Due to the favorable traffic situation, the first post office opened in the “Zur Krone” inn in 1825 . The four-in-hand stagecoaches ran twice a day from Düsseldorf- Oberbilk via Benrath to Wald (Solingen) and stopped in front of the Krone. They served both the parcel service and the passenger transport service. Repairs could be carried out on site in the forge at An der Gabelung / corner of Walder Strasse. The forge building, Walder Strasse 1, has been part of the Walder Strasse monument area of ​​the city of Hilden since 1987. Adolf Bausenhaus took on the double function of landlord and mail carrier until 1857. When Edmund Bausenhaus subsequently became his successor, the post office Wirtshaus separated.

The “Zur Krone” inn became a hotel and hostel for travelers to the post office.

The building complex comprised: The half-timbered house on Mittelstrasse (built before 1700) with a restaurant and dining room on the ground floor. The hotel's guest rooms were upstairs. The female staff lived in the attic. There was also a wooden tub there, from which the hotel's taps were supplied with water. The water tank (approx. 3000 kg full) was fed with water by a twin piston pump. She was driven by a göpel with a horse running in a circle in the yard.

The nave with kitchen and hall on the ground floor was perpendicular to the half-timbered house in the east. The common rooms were on the upper floor. The coach house, built in 1825, was perpendicular to the half-timbered house in the western area and behind it were the stables of the post office. Right next to it were the post office and the accommodation of the male staff for up to fourteen postillons .

The "Society Recreation" was founded in 1845 and operated casino rooms with billiards in the hall of the "Zur Krone" inn. The club was only open to the largest taxpayers, manufacturers, officers and academics. Officials, except for the mayor, were not allowed.

Bremme brew was served in the Krone . The “Zur Krone” inn had a so-called lead chamber, that is, a room without a window, in which one could drink cups even after 11 p.m., the curfew, without being seen by the night watchman.
In October 1846, the district government appointed the then 27-year-old Hermann Clemens mayor of Hilden. From 1846 until the inauguration of the town hall in 1900, the mayor's seat was in the “Krone” inn. The council met in the hall, in the casino.

Application for elevation of the village of Hilden to the third estate with the Prussian King Wilhelm I.

In 1861 Albert Koennecke (mayor 1851–1865) wrote the application for a town elevation in the “Zur Krone” inn. He applied to the Prussian King Wilhelm I to be raised to the third estate at the provincial representation. This means that Hilden received city rights.

The population has risen sharply to 4510. There are many tasteful houses as well as several elegant houses. There are two postal connections to Benrath and Solingen. There are 13 factories and large stores, including a chocolate shop. They employ 1000 workers. There are over 111 craftsmen, 95 self-employed traders, over 60 small traders and 7 insurance agents. The place has two churches, eight educational institutions. There are 5 schools, a pharmacy (Adler) and 2 doctors. We are very proud of the Sparkasse. There are 27 innkeepers, a brewer and four brandy distillers in Hilden. There are 6 streets in Hilden: Mittelstraße with market square, fork with Elberfelder Straße, Heiligenstraße, Schulstraße, Klotzstraße, Schwanenstraße. Two annual fairs and a weekly vegetable market with no booth fees are well attended. The village of Hilden has many tasteful and several elegant houses, it is completely built on and there are no longer any vacant spaces.

History after Hilde was elevated to the rank of city

On December 1, 1864, the articles of association and the statutes of the "Hildener Gasanstalt" were signed in front of the Benrath notary Paniel in the "Zur Krone" inn.

In 1869 a park-like garden was laid out on the back of the “Zur Krone” inn. It stretched from today's street “Am Kronengarten” to “Kolpingstraße” (until 1949 Gasstraße). The councilors prepared the council resolutions while walking in the crown garden.

The guests sat in the veranda, which was built in the western part of the Kronengarten in 1850 together with the adjoining music pavilion. Every Sunday in the summer the military bands of the Düsseldorf and Cologne garrisons played alternately in the music pavilion.

In the Kronengarten there was a beer garden and play equipment for the children. The first bicycle ( Velociped ) was demonstrated in 1869. Folk festivals, balls and dance events were celebrated in the Kronengarten. In addition, bands played in the open air and performances organized on traveling stages.

Horse bus timetable 1877

After the construction of the Rhenish railway lines, the horse-drawn bus from the Gasthaus zur Krone served as a feeder to the train stations in Benrath (opened in 1845), Ohligs (opened in 1867, renamed Solingen Hauptbahnhof in December 2006 ) and Hilden (opened in 1874).

Bausenhaus's successor as host from 1873 was August Gressard (1845–1926), a cousin of the silk manufacturer and honorary citizen of Hilden, Fritz Gressard .

August Gressard made the Kronengarten known far beyond the city limits. Before he came to Hilden, he had acquired in-depth knowledge of chicken breeding in Pomerania and, to the astonishment of his guests, soon brought numerous rare bird species into the aviaries in the eastern part of the Fauna Garden, such as peacocks, pheasants in silver and gold, guinea fowl and bantams and Bergische Kräher . That earned him the nickname "Chicken August". In addition to his work as a landlord and hotelier, he continued to seriously deal with the breeding of pedigree poultry , was active for a long time at poultry exhibitions throughout Germany as an arbitrator and honorary arbitrator and was involved in the establishment of several poultry breeding associations. On March 7, 1881, Gressard took part in the establishment of the “Club of German and Austro-Hungarian Poultry Breeders” on the occasion of the 6th Poultry Congress in Elberfeld . The Düsseldorf poultry breeders' association followed in 1883, and in 1885 the "Fauna Hilden" breed poultry association. From a congress at the Ornithological Association in Vienna , Gressard probably brought the Watschenmann with him, which he set up in his inn to amuse his guests. You could let out your aggression by slapping the head-high doll with a leather head. Around 1896, Gressard gave the crown as a flourishing company to his successor Johann Peter Jansen and retired to his newly built "Villa Fauna" on the corner of Kirchhofstrasse and Hagekreuzstrasse.

In 1879 Hilden was given a branch of the Gerresheim district court . It met in the “Zur Krone” inn.

Mittelstrasse was paved in front of the “Zur Krone” inn in 1888. Until then, the road was muddy and rutted through.

On Tuesday, March 5, 1895, Gustav Cramer (born October 28, 1871 in Düsseldorf; † October 27, 1953), a partner in the Society for the Cotton Industry , which was about to move production from Düsseldorf to Hilden, invited other industrialists from the area to the Gasthaus zur Krone in order to convince them of the necessity of establishing a branch of the Reichsbank in Hilden against the background of the boom in Hilden's industry . It was decided to submit a relevant petition to the Reichsbank directorate. The required branch of the Reichsbank in Hilden was opened in the same year.

In 1898, the “Bergische Kleinbahn AG” , founded by the “Continental Society for Electrical Enterprises” , Nuremberg, began laying the rails for the small electric railway from Benrath to Hilden. The extension of the meter-gauge route now leading from Oberbilker Markt in Düsseldorf via Benrath to Hilden initially ended in front of the “Zur Krone” inn. The first line from Benrath to Hilden ran on December 12, 1898. In the following year, 1899, the two connecting lines to Ohligs and via Haan to Vohwinkel were built and opened.

On June 5, 1919, the “Moderne Lichtspiele” cinema opened in the Gasthaus zur Krone. In 1926 it was renamed “Central Theater” and in 1932 Karl Bernatzky continued to operate it as the “Hildener Volkstheater”. The casino rooms of the “Gesellschaft Recreation” were closed in 1934. After the Second World War, the British occupation authorities confiscated the restaurant in 1945. The English of St. David's Barracks (today Waldkaserne ) used the "Krone" as an administrative center and ran the "Crossed Keys" bar until May 1957. The "Zur Krone" inn was demolished on February 11, 1959.

History of Mittelstrasse 17 after the "Zur Krone" inn was torn down

Successor to the Krone: first "Central", since 2015 "Müller"

On November 12, 1959, the newly built department store "Central" opened at Mittelstrasse 17. The department stores Karstadt (1972), Hertie (2007), City-Kaufhaus (2010), Gooran-Wohnoutlet (2011), and, after extensive renovation, the drugstore Müller (since 2015) followed as users of the building .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Bodo Volmer: Hilden memories. Stadtwerke Hilden, 1991, p. 22.
  2. ↑ a b c Ulrike Unger, Michael Ebert: Dönekes and local history, history and stories from Hilden. Rheinische Post, Museum and Heimatverein Hilden eV, 1998, ISBN 3-9804615-2-1 , p. 60.
  3. ↑ Sandra Grünwald: The old days are alive in Walder Strasse. Rheinische Post , September 11, 2017, accessed on April 14, 2019 .
  4. ↑ a b Dominique Schroller: From the bar to the sinner's bench. Rheinische Post , August 2, 2011, accessed on April 10, 2019 .
  5. ^ Peter Klein: 65 years of the innkeeping trade in Hilden, 1884–1949.
  6. ↑ Dirk Lotze: The Prussian King agrees. Westdeutsche Zeitung , March 4, 2011, accessed April 10, 2019 .
  7. ^ Stadtwerke Hilden, Thomas Bernhardt: 100 Years of Electricity in Hilden , Heinedruck, Düsseldorf 2007 (digitized version )
  8. ^ Thomas Bernhardt, Werner Kimmel, Christina Görtz, Michael de Clerque, Andreas Stephainski, Roland Ermich: Time travel 1000 years of life in Hilden, 150 years of city rights. Göttingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-9812527-9-8 .
  9. ↑ a b Wolfgang Wennig: Hilden yesterday and today. Hilden City Archives, 1977, p. 79.
  10. ^ Rheinisches Volksblatt, Hilden, No. 111 of September 22, 1877.
  11. ^ Citizens' newspaper for Düsseldorf and the surrounding area No. 57 of March 8, 1895.
  12. ↑ Wolfgang Wennig: Hilden yesterday and today. , Hilden City Archives, 1977, p. 77.
  13. ↑ Rheinisches Volksblatt, Hilden, No. 146 of December 13, 1898.
  14. ↑ Michael Kremer: Last Tram: Farewell to the Electric. Westdeutsche Zeitung , April 13, 2012, accessed on October 4, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Miriam Drescher: Hilden city history: pictures flicker in the horse stable. Westdeutsche Zeitung , February 26, 2010, accessed on April 10, 2019 .
  16. ↑ United Kingdom 2nd Infantry Division
  17. ↑ Hilden Yearbook 1956-59, Verlag Fr. Peters Hilden 1960
  18. ↑ Michael Kremer: Stop at the Hotel zur Krone. Westdeutsche Zeitung , January 25, 2012, accessed on April 10, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Christoph Schmidt: Drugstore Müller buys the former Hertie house. Rheinische Post , August 28, 2014, accessed on March 27, 2018 .

Web links

Commons : Gasthaus zur Krone  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 10 ′ 8.2 ″  N , 6 ° 56 ′ 18.3 ″  E